New immigration Public Charge rules were issued today, that will come into force of law in the next few months. The rule is over 800 pages long and the estimated time to read it is between 16-20 hours as stated in the rule itself. It is focussed on attacking low income legal immigration where immigrants and non-immigrants are attempting to follow the law, but are deemed too likely to be eligible for public benefits from any governmental source from local cities to states.

At this stage it is unclear how or when this new rule will go into effect as lawsuits will likely be filed soon. What is known is that some of the most controversial points made in the draft rule that was published earlier have been modified.

With that said, it does appear that going forward it will be a much higher burdern in general to gain approval for Legal Permanent Resident Status or Naturalization to become a US citizen for many applicants. We are also expecting to see new forms, and potentially new immigration fees (or increased fees) as part of this rule change. 

Many immigrants and non-immigrants will be tempted to immediately change their behaviour and remove themselves from any form of public benefit. However we do not recommend making any changes that may endanger someones health or access to food for themselves and their family. It is too early to make any decision that important, and either way immigration may be allowed to look at conduct that happened in the past so any damage may already have been done.

In addition, decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis taking into consideration the "totality of the circumstances." Therefore no two situations will be treated the same.

As this new rule is rolled out we will continue to provide more details attack to legal immigration to the US. 

Here is a link to the new rule in it's entirety.